It’s Official: Internships are Sexy

With only a month of summer left, I am reminded (with a deep sense of impending doom) that most of mm/c’s fabulous interns are undoubtedly gearing up to make the trek back to school come mid-August, and boy will they be missed! It got me thinking – It’s no secret that with student debt soaring to nauseating heights, the plight of the poor, unpaid intern has gained notoriety in the news recently. Personally, I cherished my first PR internship. It gave me remarkable insight into the industry — it’s many faces, inside jokes and frustrations — not to mention a free, hands-on education. So I was thrilled to see a surge of new publications, movies and online outlets portraying internships not only as nurturing, but damn sexy as well.

Intern mag has just launched Issue Zero – created by interns for interns, the matte mag has a seductive and engaging quality with a focus on “meet the talent” instead of “get thee to the gulags.” I have already ordered a copy on Kickstarter – and suggest you do the same, or grab a copy of Issue One when it hits the shelves of your local Urban Outfitters (really nailed their demographic on that one). This isn’t the first of it’s kind either – The Internship Magazine is a digital men’s lifestyle mag that has been around for the better part of 2013. Dappled with images of gorgeous male modelesque interns, it celebrates the creative industries up-and-comers with a “watch-out-world” vibe.

Hollywood is catching on as well – Vince Vaugh and Owen Wilson’s “The Internship” which hit theaters in June, follows the two middle-aged chuckle-heads through their internship at the benevolent cult-like headquarters of Google. The movie portrays today’s college grads (and accurately so) as a brilliant battalion of young, attractive, cut throat 20’s something’s who have nothing to lose and everything to gain (out with the old and in with the new!).

I’ll be the first to admit that not all internships are romantic adventures into uncharted waters; internships are what you make of them, and that’s where the sexy part comes in – it’s all you baby, so work it! In truth, it will more often be like this, and will most likely never be like this. Regardless, the camaraderie that stems from the experience and the “it’s not what you know but who you know” networking that can come from them is not to be missed. I wouldn’t trade my coffee-totting, spell-checking, cold-calling, errand-running internship experience for the world. Would you?